In 2016, the Benue State Government proposed a generator tax, claiming it would invest the proceeds in repairing and maintaining the ozone layer. However, when Terna Francis, the media assistant to the chairman of the Benue Internal Revenue Service’s board at the time, Mimi Orubibi, was asked how the proceeds would be used to “maintain the ozone layer” about 30 kilometres above the Earth's surface, he had no idea. This shows the Nigerian state’s attitude towards what should ordinarily be a serious affair.
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As I contemplated writing this piece, I could feel the aura of laziness around me like a mighty gong on the neck of a town crier. But it was more of an internal than external factor. I had this conflict in my head: as someone who is apolitical, if I should be writing a seemingly controversial political article, but then it dawned on me that if we keep shying away from politics because of its perceived “dirtiness” or complexity, then questionable leaders will continue to go unpunished.
But this article is not calling for the punishment of Nigeria’s Minister of Special Duties and Inter-governmental Affairs and Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Benue State, Senator George Akume, yet. Rather, it is a critical analysis of the political melodrama that the Minister staged at the Benue APC Stakeholders/Caucus meeting, on the 23rd of July 2021, in Makurdi.